Student Research Fellowship Opportunities
The NUS Museum offers two annual fellowship programmes, the NUS Museum Student Research Fellowship as well as the Alice & Agnes Tan Student Research Fellowship, to provide opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students at the National University of Singapore (NUS) to pursue research with a focus on engaging with the collections at the Museum and NUS Baba House. The two fellowships offer access to the resources housed within the NUS Museum and Baba House as well as opportunities to actively engage with the museum environment and our related programmes.
Eligibility
- Students who will be in the third or fourth year of undergraduate studies or pursuing graduate studies in NUS for Academic Year 2025/2026.
- Honours (Distinction) and above (4.0 GPA) in academic performance.
- Interested applicants are expected to have an Academic Supervisor who has agreed to supervise the project to be considered for the fellowship. The role of Academic Supervisors will be to guide the research of the fellow, ensure academic integrity of the research and provide feedback on the fellow’s performance.
Research Areas & Priority Research Themes
The NUS Museum Student Research Fellowship is open to students interested to embark on research focused on NUS Museum’s collections, exhibition histories and/or archives.
The Alice & Agnes Tan Student Research Fellowship is open to students interested to embark on research focused on the NUS Baba House as an object of study, as well as the NUS Museum’s Straits Chinese Collection.
A few resources which potential applicants may wish to consult to ideate research topics from include:
– NUS Museum’s Prospectus, focusing on selected collections of artefacts
– The upcoming Prospectus for AY2526 categories, including Southeast Asian Textiles, Southeast Asian Ceramics, Fistful of Colours: Moments of Chinese Cosmopolitanism, “Malayanization” of Chinese Ink, and Contemporary Exploration of Heritage
– NUS Museum’s Collections Online, a searchable online database of NUS Museum’s collections.
How to Apply
Open call for the Student Research Fellowships are currently closed.
NUS Museum and Alice & Agnes Tan Student Research Fellows AY2425
Kazuto Nakano |  Kazuto Nakano is a student at Yale-National University of Singapore College, specialising in anthropology of climate change, multispecies ethnography, materiality and care studies, and heritage work. His research with the NUS Museum Student Research Fellowship looks at the boat models in the hull and the rig prep-room to look at how boats, both in their physical form and as models, exercise agency in coastal lives and museums. |
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Ryan-Ashleigh Boey |  Ryan-Ashleigh Boey is a fourth-year English major. His current research interests lie in cultural memory studies, children’s literature, and (fictional inscriptions of) the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. His research with the NUS Museum Student Research Fellowship looks at concepts of performance and performativity of Charles Dyce’s watercolour paintings as it is situated in the Radio Malaya exhibition. |
Gan Xin Chen |  Gan Xin Chen is a 3rd year student in the History and Political Science double degree programme. Her interests lie in the intersections of material culture, Asian history and international relations. Her research with the Alice & Agnes Tan Student Research Fellowship looks at the ceramics found in the Straits Chinese Collection of NUS Museum and its provenance and terminology as used by the Peranakan Chinese community. |